Fashion & technology field research
2 What happened the last decade in fashion &
technology spillovers?
This question is best answered using a timeline. Past projects have influence
on later projects. With an analysis of the field research in a timeline,
structures, trends and patterns will appear. [scheme
>>] Lines can be extrapolated to the future and opportunities
for next decennia can be found.
3 What are the future opportunities of techno fashion?
The collected projects will bring some pitfalls to light.
4 What are the pitfalls for the implementation of
technology in the fashion market?
To answer this question a list of pitfalls will appear- and analyzed in
literature.
This field research has the goal of inspiring future projects and creating
more references for both technicians and designers.
Fashion & technology field research >>
Methodology
Selected projects all are concerned with technical developments applied
into clothing and fashion. This is the empirical date of this research.
I have found these projects on internet, in several sources of literature,
lifestyle magazines and at exhibitions.
All projects are classified in three fields: textiles
(materials), wearable electronics
and new production processes.Each
field will contain several subfields. The dossier area explain the classification,
followed by one example of a technical implementation in that field with
a short analysis thereof.
Fashion & technology field research >> Extrapolation to find Future potentials
3 What are the future opportunities for techno fashion?
‘The future is in history’1 as the managing director of Royal Ten Cate, Look de Vries mentions in ‘De Twentse Courant Tubantia. That’s why I created an historical timeline. Now we can extrapolate these data to estimate future opportunities.
Reed more about environment [>>] protection [>>] inducidualization [>>].
Having said that, there are major opportunities for fashion technology as related to environmental issues, communication issues and improved human protection uses.
But as the following list shows, there are some pitfalls that need to be overcome before big-scale-implementation in the consumer world is possible.
4 What are the pitfalls for the implementation of technology in the fashion market? We have already seen that there are major opportunities for fashionable technology in the future. But why isn’t it already on the commercial market?
These pitfalls are generated from the field analysis and the implementation researches of biotechnology, wearable electronic and 3D prototype examples.
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[>>] 2 Ed van Hinte 2006 p243
3 Suzanne Lee [20070619 blog]
4 Dany Jacobs 2005 p274
5 Bradley Quinn 2002
6 Excellent design in the skin project of Philips & O’Neill prefers Industrial Designers as garment designers.
Fashion & technology field research >> List of pitfalls >> 5 What are the opportunities for future fashion designers?
Technicians work on technical improvement. Their management thinks about the economic factors. So in time they will solve these two pitfalls, but what about the other pitfalls?
Fashion designers are educated from social perspective. They ‘aren’t about innovation, they are about fantasy,’1 said Despina Papadopoulos from Studio 5050. Fashion designers think from the consumer’s point of view. How mankind emotionally adapts things through positive aesthetics, interesting design and placing it in a surrounding that fits in this time. Design education is ‘based on social idealism’.2 Said Ed van Hinte.
‘Technology is developing, but people stay the same.’3 Consumers want clothing from designers they are used to, not from technicians. The fashion branch has a tradition of stretching people’s minds to look more than up-to-date by consuming ‘newness’. That’s why they can create a much wider social acceptance.
So the pitfalls can disappear if fashion designers embrace technical developments and stay active in collaboration projects to introduce more technology in the commercial fashion world. ‘The world of design will benefit from specialists with more technical and more cultural expertise, who preferably are willing to talk to each other.’4 Said Danny Jacobs and Bradley Quinn is saying: ‘the key to making this possible depends on the extent to which the industries of fashion (…) and technology can force an alliance and work towards the same goal.’5
Technicians are developing their skills.6 If fashion designers don’t embrace technology, technical developers will become the designers of the future.
But it is hard to create succesfull collaboration between fashion designers and technical developers. That’s why some experiments are done. Read more about that in [experiments >>]